A small group of city councilors from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), accompanied by DPP Legislator Pasuya Yao (姚文智), formed a half circle on Monday morning as they burned reproductions of the Philippine flag and images of Philippine President Benigno Aquino III outside the Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) in Taipei.
Yao and the participants at the small protest were expressing the outrage many Taiwanese feel at the Philippine Coast Guard’s killing of a Taiwanese fisherman on Thursday. They were joined by dozens of members of the 908 Taiwan Republic Alliance, a pro-independence group, who, along with DPP city councilors, lobbed green flippers at the office.
Their anger at the use of indiscriminate force against an unarmed fishing vessel — regardless of whether it indeed crossed into the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, as Manila claims — was entirely justified, as were their calls on President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration to ensure that the matter is resolved in a just and timely manner.
Since the killing of 65-year-old Hung Shih-cheng (洪石成) onboard the ill-fated Kuang Ta Hsing No. 28, the DPP has been relentless in its criticism of the Ma administration, accusing it of being “slow” and “soft” in its response, and of lacking resolve. It has also called for a more muscular role for the military than what the government has been willing to consider.
One wonders whether the outburst of nationalism and martial spirit is truly intended to resolve the crisis or is simply an attempt to make Ma look bad, no matter what.
It is true that the DPP has not been alone in doing this. Several legislators from Ma’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) have sounded like warmongers in the past few days, and other members were present at a protest on Monday during which eggs were lobbed at the building that houses the Philippine representative office.
However, all things considered, the Ma administration has handled the crisis rather well and has managed to strike a balance between several related issues: It has been firm with Manila; it has issued an ultimatum that will expire just as this paper goes to print; it communicated with the US; it involved the navy and reinforced the coast guard; and it warded off attempts at meddling by Beijing.
In a show of both compassion and skillful diplomacy, it even promised to help the family of a Philippine worker seek compensation on Monday after he was killed in a car accident while being driven to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, from where he was to be deported for overstaying his visa.
What more would the DPP have the Ma administration do? By going beyond what it has done to date, Taipei would unduly risk escalating tensions with a neighbor and a major source of manpower. Whatever short-term gains might be scored against Ma and the KMT by accusing him of being “soft” on an “arrogant, rude and unreasonable country” — DPP Legislator Chiu Yi-ying’s (邱議瑩) words — are not worth the long-term damage that would be caused to bilateral ties should the situation deteriorate as a result of a more hardline policy in Taipei.
And whatever policy alternatives the DPP might have come up with had it been forced to deal with a similar issue, desecrating another country’s flag during a protest is conduct most unbecoming.
It is a display of nationalism that has no place in a peace-loving country like Taiwan. Members of the DPP should know better than anyone else that such reckless acts are exactly the type of comportment they often deplore among Chinese nationalists across the Taiwan Strait, who have turned such barbarism into a national sport.
Taiwanese have been overwhelmingly even-handed in their response to the incident. The DPP wins nothing by acting like a bully. Cool heads must prevail, at every level.
Because much of what former US president Donald Trump says is unhinged and histrionic, it is tempting to dismiss all of it as bunk. Yet the potential future president has a populist knack for sounding alarums that resonate with the zeitgeist — for example, with growing anxiety about World War III and nuclear Armageddon. “We’re a failing nation,” Trump ranted during his US presidential debate against US Vice President Kamala Harris in one particularly meandering answer (the one that also recycled urban myths about immigrants eating cats). “And what, what’s going on here, you’re going to end up in World War
Earlier this month in Newsweek, President William Lai (賴清德) challenged the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to retake the territories lost to Russia in the 19th century rather than invade Taiwan. He stated: “If it is for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t [the PRC] take back the lands occupied by Russia that were signed over in the treaty of Aigun?” This was a brilliant political move to finally state openly what many Chinese in both China and Taiwan have long been thinking about the lost territories in the Russian far east: The Russian far east should be “theirs.” Granted, Lai issued
On Tuesday, President William Lai (賴清德) met with a delegation from the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at Stanford University in California, to discuss strengthening US-Taiwan relations and enhancing peace and stability in the region. The delegation was led by James Ellis Jr, co-chair of the institution’s Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region project and former commander of the US Strategic Command. It also included former Australian minister for foreign affairs Marise Payne, influential US academics and other former policymakers. Think tank diplomacy is an important component of Taiwan’s efforts to maintain high-level dialogue with other nations with which it does
On Sept. 2, Elbridge Colby, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development, wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal called “The US and Taiwan Must Change Course” that defends his position that the US and Taiwan are not doing enough to deter the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from taking Taiwan. Colby is correct, of course: the US and Taiwan need to do a lot more or the PRC will invade Taiwan like Russia did against Ukraine. The US and Taiwan have failed to prepare properly to deter war. The blame must fall on politicians and policymakers